Sunday, October 4, 2015

Melanoidin- Melanoidins are formed from the chemical reaction (Maillard Reaction) when sugars and amino acids combine at elevated temperatures. Melanoidins add color with no flavor. The flavor associated with melanoidins is from the Maillard Reaction of the sugars and amino acids combining.

The flavors being - the flavor you get when you toast bread or roast marshmallows.

The compound 6-Acetyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydropyridine (pictured below) also is part of the flavor and smell associated with melanoidins.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Have you ever stopped to think about why you are adding the hops to the boil when you do? 60 minutes, 45 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, flame out and into fermentation (dry hopping).

The point of adding hops at different points of the boil is to get the various qualities of the hops in your beer. Hops contain Alpha acids located in the Lupulin gland. The longer your hops are in the boil the more Alpha acids you will extra from the hops. The more Alpha acids in your brew the higher your IBUs will be.

All your hop additions change from one beer style to the next. Why? I will give some examples.

Brown ale will have most of the hop additions at the 60 minute mark and few at the middle and end of the boil. But why is this, you ask. Brown ales have a profile emphasizing on the malt over the hops. Lower hop additions in the middle and end give a lower to no hop flavor and aroma.

India Pale Ales are big on bitterness, hop flavor and aroma. IPAs may have a 90 minute hop addition to extract as much of the alpha acids as possible. For the flavor there will be large hop additions and for the aroma the additions can be from large to mammoth amounts of hops. IPAs will be dry hopped to bring the aroma to the next level.

Below I have put in a chart so you can know when to add your hops on your next brew day.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

This will be my first home brew Wednesday blog post. Today I will talk about what I have been doing in the brewing world and some of my up grades in my home brew equipment.

Backon January 10 one of my local breweries (Draft Line) had an event called Brew and Chew. As the Head brewer said " we will BREW some home brew and CHEW on some brewing facts. There was around twenty homebrewers on hand. All brewing our own 5 to 10 gallon batches. I brewed a Pale Ale with all Nelson Sauvin hops and cultivated Wyeast 1272 from my last brew of ESB. What a great brew day.

From the Brew and Chew I picked up a few techniques to bring my Brewing up to the next level. Up until that day I had only batch sparged, but from some of the other home brewers I was able to get some ideas on how to build a fly sparge system, which I used on my next brewday.